Chautala seeks more funds for Panchayati bodiesNew Delhi, April 6Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala yesterday urged the Centre to enhance the grant being given to Panchayati Raj Institutions
and entrust them these task of implementation of schemes of various ministries and departments by also transferring their allocated funds as in the case of implementation of schemes of the Union Ministry of Rural Development.

George for increased panchayat-LS linksNew Delhi, April 6Defence Minister George Fernandes today favoured increased linkages between the Lok Sabha and the Gram Sabha, saying this was possible by routing the MP Local Area Development funds through the panchayats.

Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala pays tributes to late Ch. Devi Lal at his samadhi “Sangharsh Sthal” on his first death anniversary in the Capital on Saturday.
— Tribune photo Mukesh Aggarwal

Children from different schools participate in the "Run for Cancer," an awareness drive towards the cause of cancer in New Delhi on
Saturday.
In video (28k,
56k)Music director Anu Malik and cine stars Anil Kapoor and Shilpa Shetty on the occasion of the music release function of Kaushik's forthcoming film "Badhai Ho" in New Delhi on Friday night.
— PTI

IA to fly PM to CambodiaNew Delhi, April 6After decades, the country’s domestic carrier, Indian Airlines, will get the privilege to join hands with its more affluent cousin, Air-India, to provide comfort to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his entourage on a foreign visit.

Bachchan Jr summoned
in assault caseNew Delhi, April 6A Delhi metropolitan court has issued summons on Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s son Abhishek in a case relating to the reported assault of two Delhi-based photo-journalists last year.

Paswan lashes out at ModiKolkata, April 6The Union Coal Minister, Mr Ram Bilas Paswan, on a two-day visit to the state, lashed out at the BJP Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, for his failure to restore normalcy in Gujarat.

500 delegates attend ILA conferenceNew Delhi, April 6The five-day long 70th Biennial Conference of the International Law Association concluded in New Delhi today evening. The Conference at Vigyan Bhavan was attended by more than 500 delegates comprising Judges, members of the Bar, jurists and academics from India and abroad.

New Delhi, April 6
Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala yesterday urged the Centre to enhance the grant being given to Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and entrust them these task of implementation of schemes of various ministries and departments by also transferring their allocated funds as in the case of implementation of schemes of the Union Ministry of Rural Development.

The Chief Minister, who was speaking at the All-India Panchayat Adhyakshas Sammelan, said the government had given to the PRIs the administrative control of those departments which were directly connected with rural development. For instance, the administration and financial control of primary schools had been transferred to the PRIs, he said.

The participation of PRIs had been ensured in the selection of beneficiaries for the schemes being implemented for rural development by various departments, especially Agriculture and Forests so as to accelerate the pace of rural development and bring about qualitative improvement, Mr Chautala said.

According to a Haryana Government spokesman, the Chief Minister said nutritious food was being distributed in anganwaris in the presence of a woman sarpanch or panch. Besides maintaining health centres and water supply schemes in rural areas, the gram panchayats had also been checking the attendance of their staff. Three members of the Gram Panchayat had also been appointed in the committee constituted to identify the beneficiaries of old-age pension and handicapped pension, he said.

Mr Chautala said Haryana ranked at No. 2 in the country after Tamil Nadu by utilising 95.49 per cent of the funds allocated under the Centrally-sponsored rural development schemes in 2000-01.

New Delhi, April 6
Defence Minister George Fernandes today favoured increased linkages between the Lok Sabha and the Gram Sabha, saying this was possible by routing the MP Local Area Development (MPLAD) funds through the panchayats.

Addressing the concluding session of the All-India Panchayat Presidents Conference, Mr Fernandes said the Panchayats should also be given powers to control the police force.

The minister said instead of the funds going to the MP, these should be given directly to the district, block and village panchayats as their discretionary funds. Only when such a system came into place would the Lok Sabha be directly linked with the Gram Sabha, he added.

“Panchayats are being deprived of their actual rights due to the MP, the bureaucracy and the state governments coming in their way,’’ the Defence Minister said, adding that he would talk to the Speaker in this regard and might give a proposal to the government as well.

Mr Fernandes also proposed bringing the control of the police under the panchayats instead of the states. “This proposal can be incorporated in the proposed Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill,’’ he suggested.

When the recruitment to the local police would be made at the local level, personnel so inducted would be knowing the trouble-makers and it would be easier for them to collect evidence and bring the culprits to justice, he said.

Mr Fernandes said in the USA, recruitment to the police was made at the local administration-level, which was also the practice in many other countries.

New Delhi, April 6
Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha today said an incentive fund would be created for panchayats for efficient implementation of development activities at the grass-roots level.

“An additional Rs 12,500-13,000 crore has been allocated to states which are doing better job. We will make similar funds available to panchayats which show better performance,” Mr Sinha said at the All-India Panchayat Adhykshas Sammelan here.

While the fund will act as an incentive for panchayats to perform better, at the same time it will not be made available for those who fail to utilise the funds.

He said panchayats should not be mere agents of development, but should also be units of governance. He, however, regretted that resource mobilisation by Panchayats were poor.

“The revenue stream has to be identified. The panchayats should strive to raise their own resources apart from that available from the Centre and states”, he said and added that panchayats should utilise user charges on public
utilities such as irrigation.

On the Centre’s Rs 1,35,000 crore borrowing plan, the Finance Minister said: “We want these funds to be spent. We do not want these funds to be deposited in banks as it only increases the interest costs. Greater is the utilisation of central resources, greater will be fund allocation.”

New Delhi, April 6
After decades, the country’s domestic carrier, Indian Airlines, will get the privilege to join hands with its more affluent cousin, Air-India, to provide comfort to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his entourage on a foreign visit.

Indian Airlines, which has a regular flight to Bangkok and Singapore, will play host to the Prime Minister and his entourage when he starts the second leg of his tour to Cambodia on April 9. The first leg of his tour to Singapore starts tomorrow.

Indian Airlines, which has earlier flown the then Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi on overseas jaunts in the 1980s, will be taking Mr Vajpayee on its 145-seater A-320 from Singapore to Phnom Penh.

Mr Vajpayee and his high-level delegation will be flying Indian Airlines from Singapore to Cambodia because the Air-India Boeing 747 cannot be accommodated at the airstrip in Phnom Penh.

Reports said every requirement that was needed for a VVIP flight had been taken care off. The A-320 will ferry the Prime Minister back to Singapore on April 11 from where he will travel home on Air- India’s 747.

Indira Gandhi had flown in a Boeing to Europe and the Gulf after an Air-India plane was suspected to have been tampered with in an act of sabotage. Rajiv Gandhi also used a Boeing 737 on a visit to West Asia in the 1980s.

The government had recently called for bids from both Airbus and Boeing for induction of 3 VVIP jets to replace the ageing B-737s that the Indian Air Force has to ferry the President and the Prime Minister.

The government is looking at 100-125-seaters so that the Prime Minister can use it for visits to neighbouring countries, besides travels within the country. Both airframe manufacturers have given their technical and financial bids which are currently being examined by the Ministry of Defence.

New Delhi, April 6
A Delhi metropolitan court has issued summons on Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s son Abhishek in a case relating to the reported assault of two Delhi-based photo-journalists last year.

The summons relate to charges of “wrongful restraint” of and “voluntarily causing hurt” to the two cameramen — one of whom is Mustafa Qureshi, photo-journalist with the New Delhi edition of The Indian Express.

According to the case filed in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate G.P. Singh, the two photo-journalists were victims of “an unprovoked assault” by Abhishek Bachchan while the latter was shooting for “Bas Itna
Sa Khwab Hai”, on the India Gate lawns in April last year.

The court has summoned Abhishek Bachchan to appear before it to answer the charges on May 4.
UNI

Mr Paswan yesterday met the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharjee at Writers Buildings and assured him that no employee would be victimised for closing down 22 coalmines of the eastern
coalfields in the Asansol-Raniganj belt.

New Delhi, April 6
The five-day long 70th Biennial Conference of the International Law Association concluded in New Delhi today evening. The Conference at Vigyan Bhavan was attended by more than 500 delegates comprising Judges, members of the Bar, jurists and academics from India and abroad.

The conference was inaugurated on April 2. The President of India who was to inaugurate the conference, could not make it. Nonetheless, his message was read out by the Law Minister. At the inauguration ceremony, Mr Justice S.P. Bharucha, Chief Justice of India, was installed as the President of the International Law Association. Lord Slynn of Hadley, the senior-most Judge of the House of Lords, England, actively participated in the conference.

At the conference the work of the International Committees of the International Law Association on a wide variety of topics was discussed. Specific sessions focussed on the following areas of law i.e. international monetary law, space law, diplomatic protection of persons and property, feminism and international law, international criminal court, international law of foreign investment, international commercial arbitration, water resources law, legal aspects of sustainable development, international civil and commercial litigation, refugee procedures, international family law and international trade law etc. Traditionally, the reports of these committees have contributed in a great measure to the development of International Law.

The session on legal aspects of sustainable development, chaired by Mr Justice Kuldip Singh, retired Judge, Supreme Court of India, saw the largest number of participants in the conference hall. This committee headed by him finalised the New Delhi Declaration on principles of international law relating to sustainable development. This was the culmination of the hard work of several years of the committee council members spread worldwide. Justice Kuldip Singh, popularly known as “ The Green Judge,” emphasised that sustainable development was a matter of common concern both to developing and industrialised countries and that, as such, it should be integrated into all relevant fields of policy in order to realize the goals of environmental protection, development and respect for human rights.

The International Law Association has firmly established itself as a forum for examining pressing problems of international law in the world today.

The conference came to a close extending an invitation to delegates to attend the 71st conference to be held in Berlin, Germany from August 16 to 21, 2004.

NATIONAL BRIEFS

Nine-year-old Meena (front) and her younger brother Abdul carry buckets of drinking water to their house at a slum in
Mumbai on Saturday on the eve of World Health Day.

Akchinthala Sheshu Babu, 31, dressed as a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, including a coating of silver paint, attempts to create a new world record in New
Delhi on Saturday. Babu is attempting to make a mark in the Guinness Book of World Records by not moving for 40 hours at a stretch.
— Reuters photos

TEN KILLED IN ROAD MISHAP
KOLHAPUR:
Ten persons, including a cyclist, were killed and other was seriously injured when a truck collided with a autorickshaw near Korochi village, 30 km from here, on Friday. According to the police, nine persons, including a woman, travelling by the autorickshaw, were killed on the spot. The cyclist, identified as Suresh Bhupal Udadhye (47), who came between the two vehicles, was crushed to
death. UNI

TWO YOUTHS HELD WITH 1.5 KG SMACK
AJMER: Two youths were arrested for carrying 1.5 kg of smack worth Rs 1.50 crore in the international market, the police said here on Saturday. The youths, hailing from Madhya Pradesh, were arrested from a passenger bus near Gegul on the Jaipur-Ajmer road, about 15 km from here, on Friday.
PTI

WOMAN CONSTABLE SHOOTS SELF
COIMBATORE: A 29-year-old woman constable, on guard duty at a telephone exchange in the city, allegedly committed suicide by shooting herself with the service rifle early on Saturday, the police said. Thenmozhi, a native of Salem, shot herself in the neck with the 303 rifle. She was attached to the Armed Reserve Police.
PTI

THREE LAKH PIRATED CASSETTES SEIZED
KOLKATA: The city police on Friday seized about three lakh pirated music cassettes of various popular brands worth about Rs 70 lakh from a godown in central Kolkata. Deputy Commissioner of the Detective Department Soumen Mitra said two persons — Mohammad Akbar and Shanu Sheikh — were arrested from the Chandni Chawk area here in this connection.
UNI

LETHARGY COSTS UP RS 100 CR NABARD AID
LUCKNOW: Despite reeling under a major power crisis, the Uttar Pradesh Government has yet to respond to the offers of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) of financial assistance to the state for its power projects. The government had lost about Rs 100 crore from NABARD during the last financial year by not submitting any project to the bank in the power sector despite several reminders.
UNI

N-E RAILWAYS TO RUN SUMMER SPECIALS
GORAKHPUR: The North-Eastern Railway would run eight pairs of summer specials and attach additional coaches in 11 pairs of mail and express trains between April 8 and July 18 on its different routes to cope with the summer rush. Besides these, two pairs of summer specials would be run on the Guwahati-New Delhi and Guwahati-Dadar routes under Barauni-Katihar section of the railway, according to a Railways release here.
UNI